Melody Brandon, Long Beach, CAVendor: BakerWebsite: Sweet and Saucy ShopAbout Me: Sweet & Saucy Shop is a dessert studio that specializes in cakes, cookies, and cupcakes, as well as many other goodies that taste as good as they look. Our new bakery storefront will be up and running within the next two months!

Flipping through the pages of Bon Appetit a while back, I found a recipe that intrigued me, so as always I ripped the page out of magazine and placed it on my ever growing pile of “must-try recipes”. Since I have been on my passion fruit craze lately I decided to try it out, but I wanted to make it my own and change up the recipe. I love macadamia nuts and graham cracker crusts, so I thought I would swap out their regular sugar tart crust for this combo…let me tell you that I am glad that I did!

That was not the only change I made to the recipe…they wanted shredded coconut in the coconut cream filling, but something in my head kept telling me that the mouth feel just wouldn’t be right (at least for me) with pieces of coconut in it, so I decided to just have the smooth coconut cream filling. I also always like trying my desserts out in different forms so that I can see if they would work as a mini dessert or just an individual dessert size. I love minis and always try to find recipes that can turn into mini delights. This recipe performed beautifully with both sizes. The flavors were amazing and definitely a keeper for future uses!

Coconut Macadamia Nut Tart with Passion Fruit Cream

Crust:

1 cup macadamia nuts

3 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 30 crackers)

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Toast macadamia nuts a baking sheet for 7-9 minutes or until golden brown and aromatic. Let cool and then coarsely chop.

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients for the crust until evenly combined. Spray tart pan with non-stick spray. Press the dough evenly into the bottom and all the way up the sides of your tart pan (Whatever size you choose). The crust should be 1/4″-1/2″ thick. To make minis you can bake the tart in a larger rectangle or circle tart pan and then use a small circle cutter to cut the mini tarts once they have baked and cooled.

Filling:

2/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1 t. grated lime peel

1 cup + 1/3 cup whipping cream

1 cup canned sweetened cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)

6 T. fresh lime juice

Whisk first 4 ingredients in a large bowl for 1 minute. Stir in whipping cream, cream of coconut, and lime juice. Transfer to prepared crust. Bake until set in the center (baking time depends on your size of tart shell…check mini’s after 5 minutes, individual size after 12 minutes, but could take up to 20 minutes). I didn’t try to make the tart in a large 9″ size, but I think it would turn out just fine…the only thing that worried me was that the crust might be too cooked, so I just made individual sizes and cut mini’s out of them…let me know if anyone tries the larger size tart and how it turns out. Just a note: the larger tart would need to cook for 30-40 minutes probably. Let cool and refrigerate until needed.

Passion Fruit Cream:

1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup sour cream

10 T. passion fruit pulp or puree

Whisk the cream, sugar, and sour cream until thickened. Add passion fruit pulp or puree and whisk until peaks form. Pipe or dollop on cream onto the top of the tarts. Enjoy!

Melody Brandon, Long Beach, CAVendor: BakerWebsite: Sweet and Saucy ShopAbout Me: Sweet & Saucy Shop is a dessert studio that specializes in cakes, cookies, and cupcakes, as well as many other goodies that taste as good as they look. Our new bakery storefront will be up and running within the next two months!